PORTLAND, Or. — Today, attorneys for Danyale Gill filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf against the City of Portland and several members of the Portland Police Bureau. The lawsuit alleges that the police knowingly framed Mr. Gill for a crime he had nothing to do with. Gill spent more than a decade in prison due to the police misconduct. Now, in filing his lawsuit, Gill asks a jury to rule on damages for his wrongful conviction and incarceration.
“Danyale was an innocent teenager when police officers plucked him off the street and arrested him for a shooting, despite knowing that Danyale did not commit the crime,” says attorney Justin Hill, of the civil rights law firm of Loevy + Loevy. “This police misconduct caused Danyale to suffer for years in prison when he should have been enjoying his youth.”
Mr. Gill was only 18 years old on the evening of March 25, 1994, when he was accosted on the street by police officers, chased down, and arrested for a crime he had nothing to do with. Earlier that evening, a man named Tommy Felix had been wounded in a shooting on the corner of Alberta Street and NE 15th Ave. Bureau Chief Charles Moose had been at the intersection when the shooting occurred and had allegedly seen the shooter hop a fence. Chief Moose lost sight of that individual, but a little while later—while driving around the neighborhood—came across Mr. Gill on 16th Ave. and decided to arrest him for the crime.
Mr. Gill was not involved in the shooting whatsoever. He was visiting his uncle when it happened, and was walking home from his uncle’s friend’s house when the police accosted and arrested him. Police had no reason to believe that Mr. Gill was involved, and—apart from his being Black—Mr. Gill did not match the descriptions provided by any of the eyewitnesses, including the victim.
Indeed, according to the complaint, Tommy Felix was shown a photo array containing a picture of Mr. Gill, and not only failed to identify him, but actually pointed to someone else in the array as resembling the man who shot him.
Despite clear evidence of Mr. Gill’s innocence, police fabricated evidence implicating Gill in the crime. Chief Moose provided a false identification of Gill as the shooter (even though Chief Moose never saw the shooter’s face), and another canine officer falsely claimed that his dog identified Gill as the shooter because the dog smelled “fear” and “hostility” on him. Police then suppressed Gill’s statements of innocence in their police reports, ignored his pleas for police to call his uncle and check his alibi (which they never did), and denied his requests for a gunshot-residue test.
“This is not a case of detectives making a ‘mistake,’” says attorney Megan Pierce. “They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew Danyale didn’t do this, and they just didn’t care. Closing the case was more important to them than this kid’s future.”
This, Mr. Gill has said, is the part that is hardest to get over, and a large part of what still drives him to seek justice for the wrong that was done to him. “An accident you can forgive,” Mr. Gill told KPTV in 2023. “But when it’s done intentionally, how do you forgive that, when your life has been turned upside down completely?”
At his trial, Mr. Gill was convicted of attempted murder and unlawful use of a weapon, and sentenced to more than three years in prison. But the legal fallout from this wrongful conviction would last far longer than three years, and the physical and emotional damage he suffered continues to this day.
By the time he was released from prison, Mr. Gill’s life had been completely upended, and he became homeless. While homeless, in 1998, he was convicted of another unrelated crime, and in sentencing him the court took into account his previous conviction and deemed him a “dangerous offender.” With these enhancements adding decades to the sentencing guidelines, Mr. Gill was sentenced to 44 years in prison.
Mr. Gill was still in prison in 2007, when another man—Gabriel Chiles—admitted in a sworn statement that he had shot Tommy Felix in 1994. With that statement and another sworn affidavit collaborating it, Mr. Gill’s attorneys sought a new trial, but were denied.
It was another 10 years before the Oregon Innocence Project got involved in Mr. Gill’s case, and another seven years before they finally managed to convince the state to vacate Mr. Gill’s 1994 conviction. In 2023, all charges for that crime were dismissed, Mr. Gill’s sentence for the 1998 conviction was reduced, and he walked out of prison a free man in October 2023.
In his own words, Mr. Gill describes the harm he has suffered from his wrongful conviction: “I have suffered in a way that justice could never be served in this lifetime. The memories are indelible, the scars are indelible, and the pain is indelible.”
Today’s lawsuit asks a jury to rule on damages for several violations of Mr. Gill’s civil rights, including violations of his due process rights, unlawful detention, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy. It names as defendants: Portland police officers Mark McGlaughlin, Arthur Walgren, Brian Grose, Michael Kemp, Larry O’Dea, Michael Leloff, Duane Smiley; the estate of the late Chief Charles Moose (who died in 2021); and the City of Portland.
Mr. Gill is represented by Jon Loevy, Megan Pierce and Justin Hill of the civil rights law firm of Loevy + Loevy. In the past year alone, Loevy + Loevy has secured jury verdicts for four different wrongfully convicted individuals totaling between $30–60 million each.
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For a copy of the complaint in this case, click here.
